Why Your Business Needs Its Own App Store

Yes, I’ll have the CDN package with 2GB of private peering, but hold the IPv4. I only need IPv6, and my two developers will have their own instance of hyperscale cloud. Also, does the cloud provide Hadoop support for my Apache Environment? If so, please add block storage, and add 300GB on one and 100GB on the other. Then I will have a combo of proactive DDOS and network-based firewall.

This conversation might sound out-there in terms of IT application marketplaces. But is it?

Increasingly, no.

We talked about this trend in our Business Technology 2020 ebook as a virtualized enterprise application delivery infrastructure. Today, we see this as a win-win for enterprise IT departments and the employees using the applications.

With technical teams being pressed to produce results faster, and consumption technology like cloud changing in weeks, not years, enterprise app stores — online portals that allow IT to deliver fast, crisp solutions to both internal and external clients — are becoming more prevalent. In fact, 44 percent of IT executives report having internal enterprise app stores in place, according to a study by PMG Business Process Automation.

These app storeshelp slim down and speed up the process — forget those days of long RFPs, presentations, and steering committees to make IT solution decisions. But, perhaps more important, they give both enterprises and end-users what they want and need.

Cost: Centralizing how applications are bought could give enterprises clout with vendors, and maybe even volume discounts. Additionally, an app store could cut down on administration expenses, because the IT work would be consolidated.

Security: An app store gives the enterprise greater control over what apps are being used, and how they’re being used. It also reduces the opportunity for end-users to add incompatible or unsupported software that could possibly cause data loss.

For the end-users, it’s greater freedom to choose and use the tools and services, including those for collaboration, mobility, storage, and file sharing, that help them best do their jobs.